


and all the rest is rust and stardust

by ladililn



Series: luminous beings [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon Era, Character Study, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, no seriously so many flashbacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-30 03:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10868121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladililn/pseuds/ladililn
Summary: Ever since Bor Gullet, Bodhi finds himself slipping into a kind of déjà vu with frightening regularity. It’s more than déjà vu, actually, closer to what the Equani callçenõ-ka, like déjà vu within déjà vu. It’s not just that he feels as though he’s experienced a situation before—it’s like he’s remembering a time he remembered a time he remembered another time he remembered the very moment he’s experiencing now. Like he’s stuck in a temporal loop, the kind of campfire-tale legends he used to hear on Jedha about pilots who flew too far into deep space and never returned.





	1. i'm the pilot / family

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for Bodhi Rook week, and when that deadline ended up being too optimistic I settled for May the Fourth, and when _that_ didn't work out I hoped I could at least get it done by Revenge of the Sixth, and then finally I accepted that I needed to just split it into chapters and let it take over my life as the Force intended.
> 
> Basically, this is what happens when you really want to write character meta but it's too damn long/stylistically wonky/eventually kissy to be anything but fic. Half-hearted apologies to Nabokov for the title.

_Are you the pilot?_

Bodhi is thirteen years old and has just crashed a T-15—borrowed from a friend, who almost certainly stole it—into the base of a sandstone spire just outside the Holy City. The trooper who asks the question seems to be wearing an expression of complete disdain, even though Bodhi tries to remind himself that isn’t possible: the stormtrooper mask is as impassive as ever. Bodhi is too full of terror at being caught and relief at having survived and giddy disappointment at the incredible maneuver he _almost_ pulled off to come up with a good lie, and he’s never been a good liar anyway. He still hasn’t answered when the stormtrooper repeats his question:

_Are you the pilot?_

Bodhi is eight years old, and a _Theta-_ class shuttle has just landed in the middle of the Holy Quarter. It’s been two years since the declaration of the Galactic Empire, nearly to the day, and all the adults talk about it like it’s big and awful and important but as far as Bodhi can tell nothing much has changed. Pilgrims still roam the streets, chanting their prayers, his breath still clouds the air well after the sun rises, bats still nest in the engines of the landspeeder and have to be rooted out every morning before his brother and uncle can start making deliveries.

Only in the past few weeks have rumors begun to circulate that the Empire is planning to establish a “presence” on Jedha. Bodhi doesn’t really know what that means, only that he’s heard incredible things about Core World tech, cities where so many airspeeders fly through the atmosphere that you can’t see the sky if you’re standing on the ground. Maybe the Empire will bring some of that tech to Jedha, finally. That wouldn’t be so bad.

So his mother might be muttering angrily over a pot of stew about the _audacity_ of the Empire to land troopers right in the middle of the Holy Quarter—never mind that Bodhi can’t recall his mother ever having particular reverence for the Quarter herself—but all _he_ can see is the ship: sleek and beautiful, engines thrumming with power, newly arrived from hyperspace and looking for all the galaxy as though it just rolled off the belt at Kuat Drive Yards.

It’s beautiful. Bodhi feels an answering thrum in his blood, and it feels a lot like _potential_. Endless, boundless, infinite potential.

So he stands and watches the troopers disembark even as everyone else in the square gives the transport wide berth, pilgrims and passersby disappearing into shadows and alleyways, and when he sees a man step off the plank in a dark green flightsuit and matching cap, Bodhi steps forward and asks, louder this time,

_Are you the pilot?_

He is twenty-five years old, huddled in a dirty cell, listening to all the voices in his head say nothing at all. There are voices outside his head, too, but he doesn’t understand them any better. There’s something he needs to do—no—someone he needs to meet, maybe, or has he done that already? Maybe this is the dream, and the other thing, the thing he needs to do—the thing he _has_ done, or _will_ do, maybe—

“Hey,” the voice says, an _outside_ voice, definitely, softer, gentler this time, though only slightly—“hey,” it says, and then again, the words a lifeline—

_Are you the pilot?_

The woman looking at him with kind eyes is important, he knows, _very_ important, and for a moment he is so busy trying to impress himself with her importance that he forgets her actual name. And then he remembers, and the world steadies, crystallizes, clarifies. Mon Mothma. Chancellor and Commander-in-Chief of the Rebel Alliance.

He is twenty-five years old, still, but this is _now_. This is the present. He takes a deep breath, feels reassurance fill his lungs.

Ever since Bor Gullet, Bodhi finds himself slipping into a kind of déjà vu with frightening regularity. It’s more than déjà vu, actually, closer to what the Equani call _çenõ-ka_ , like déjà vu within déjà vu. It’s not just that he feels as though he’s experienced a situation before—more like he’s remembering a time he remembered a time he remembered another time he remembered the very moment he’s experiencing now. Like he’s stuck in a temporal loop, the kind of campfire-tale legends he used to hear on Jedha about pilots who flew too far into deep space and never returned. Sometimes he feels like a Cosian nesting toad, each one living in the mouth of its parent, on and on up to twenty generations. Except instead of twenty different toads Bodhi is just one person, filled to the brim with all his past selves, and he’s not always sure they’re in the right order or which one he's supposed to be. Sometimes he’s certain the Rebel crest sewn onto his sleeve must be a long-ago memory, and the gushing torrent of a rare Jedhan rainfall is what’s happening _now_.

“Are you the pilot?” Mon Mothma asks, with her kind eyes and _importance_ , and Bodhi comes back to himself.

 

Bodhi is the pilot for the ship that will ferry Mon Mothma off Yavin IV for the last time. This honor is less for honor’s sake and more about the fact that Mothma is the last councilmember left on-world, having been too busy organizing the evacuation to even attend the big medal ceremony/memorial service, and Bodhi is the last pilot left other than those flying the chancellor’s escort of Y-wings.

He too missed the ceremony, though for far less noble reasons. The day before Princess Leia of Alderaan made her miraculous return with a couple of unknown pilots and one immeasurably precious datacard, Bodhi fell backwards down the stairs of the Great Temple. He’d been helping move some crates when his heel caught on a rock and down he went, some fifteen meters down steep stone steps to the bottom of the ziggurat. It felt ridiculous, after all he’d endured in the past few weeks—escape and forced marches and captivity, battles and torture and a blaster bolt to the shoulder—that a clumsy trip within his long-awaited sanctuary should put him out of commission. He woke up two days later to learn that the Death Star had been destroyed and Base One was about to be evacuated.

Technically he woke up in time to attend the ceremony, if he wanted to. Bacta had done its duty and ensured there would be no lasting damage to his spine, but Bodhi still felt like someone with the strength of three Houks had taken a turbohammer to his lower back, then invited a Hutt to come sit on the bruise. He wasn’t sorry to miss the ceremony anyway. He and the other survivors of Scarif—and of the Death Star run, somehow even _fewer_ in number—were supposed to receive commendations, after which the two indisputable heroes of the hour were to receive their medals. But after _that_ would come the remembrances, a long list of the dead far outnumbering the survivors, maybe even overshadowing those heroes. Bodhi didn’t think he could stand to be there even if he were able to _stand_.

So by the time the pain in his back has dulled to a stiff ache, Bodhi is one of the last Rebels left on Yavin. When he returns to the med bay to retrieve his new jacket less than a minute after being very kindly kicked out, he finds that his bed has already been completely disassembled. The once-bustling base is cavernously empty. Most all the equipment is gone. The ziggurats of the Massassi people look like _ruins_ again, crumbling and desolate. It reminds Bodhi of Jedha, but with effort he pushes the thought from his mind. The more occupied he is, the more focused on a task at hand, the better he is able to keep from spiraling into the vortex of his own memories. That’s what got him through those days between Jedha and Scarif, and this new mission will have to do the same.

It’s a long journey, by design: every departing ship or convoy has to follow scatter protocol, taking different circuitous routes to the same rendezvous point, the better to throw off possible Imperial trackers. Bodhi doesn’t mind the detour. It’s wonderful just to be able to _fly_ again, to be alert and engaged in piloting a ship without the immediate fear of death at his heels. Even if they _are_ attacked, the Y-wings will provide protection. It reminds Bodhi, ironically, of how he used to depend on TIE fighters to ward off Rebel threats—

He stops that train of thought, too.

 

For the first hour or so Bodhi is alone in the cockpit while Mothma and her aides have a quiet discussion in the cabin. He’s surprised when the Chancellor herself joins him, giving him a warm smile as she takes the copilot seat.

Bodhi’s hands twitch over the controls, fidgeting unnecessarily with systems that won’t punish him for overattention. The rational part of his mind tries to tell him that this can’t mean anything bad—surely she just wanted a change of viewscape—but Bodhi has been hypersensitive and nervous his whole life, and too often for good reason.

“I hope you don’t mind me joining you, lieutenant,” Mothma says, and Bodhi’s hands still for just a second, remembering that _lieutenant_ is his new rank with the Alliance, promotion and defection for the price of one.

“Of course not, Commander,” he answers, a beat late. He meets her eyes and flashes a quick smile, a twist of the lips that probably registers more as a grimace than assurance.

“I was glad to hear of your recovery,” Mothma says, and pauses. Her next words are measured and carefully chosen. “I thought we might speak of your future with the Rebellion.”

Bodhi’s hands tighten on the controls, a reflex. He forces himself to loosen his grip.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and he doesn’t know _why_ he feels so anxious, he really doesn’t. There’s no reason to.

Ever since defecting from Eadu, he’s had his eye on the next way station, the next possibility of safe harbor. He’d hoped to find it with Saw Gerrera. Then on Yavin. And then—

Well, Scarif is over now, isn’t it? His mission is complete, his promise to Galen fulfilled. He delivered the message. ( _I’m the pilot_.) And when that wasn’t enough, he committed himself to following through on the message’s contents, on Galen’s true goal; he screamed and screamed until he was _heard_. And now—best of all—someone has taken his message and followed through, and the Death Star has been obliterated. Bodhi has done all he can to atone—as far as such a thing is possible, after Jedha, after Alderaan.

He should be free of it. He should be awash in relief and satisfaction. And a part of him _is_ , but a part of him—most of him—feels adrift, lost in space.

“Did you have family, back on Jedha?” Mon Mothma asks, gentle.

“Yes,” Bodhi says, then, “no—well, not really. Sort of. Not anymore. I mean—” He tries to still his swirling thoughts, the gravitational pull of a million jumbled memories. “Just my mother and sister. But they moved off-world a few…a few weeks ago.”

Was it really so recent? This time Bodhi can’t stop the memory, dislodged by Bor Gullet and sliding around in his mind like an unsecured cargo crate. It takes hold of him, suffuses all his senses, as real and tangible as _here_ and _now_ , maybe more.

He is twenty-five years old and considering defection.

It’s a terrifying thought. Almost as terrifying as the alternative, now that he knows what the alternative _is_.

Bodhi knows what he has to do. And despite the terror rooted deep in his bones, Bodhi is committed to doing it, except— _except_ —he has family on Jedha.

It’s just his mother and his sister, these days. His father and his brother and his grandfather and his great-aunt are long gone, and less than a standard year ago his uncle joined them.

Nearly eight years ago—and it boggles Bodhi’s mind to think of the time that has passed—his mother and sister left the city, shortly after his brother’s death. They moved to a settlement at the edge of the desiccated tablelands so small to be nameless. Bodhi’s father and his brother and his uncle all made deliveries there, each taking over the family business at the death of the last. His mother took a job as the caretaker of an old Sullustan woman, and his sister went along to help.

The Empire will not take Bodhi’s defection lightly. Especially if, Force forbid, they find out _why_ he defected, if they realize the trust Galen is putting in him with this mission. Bodhi is ready—he _is_ —to accept the responsibility of that risk for himself. But what if they track down his family? What if they interrogate his mother and sister, or use them as bait, or as _retribution_ —

It’s more than a possibility; it’s a near certainty. _Nothing_ is beyond the Empire. Bodhi knows that now more than ever.

He puts in a request for planetary leave to coincide with his next trip to Jedha, and is granted one free day. It’s more than Bodhi expected to get; it must help that he’s never asked before, never even taken a sick day. Once he gets into Jedha’s atmosphere, he sets immediate course for the settlement. Technically speaking, he should’ve docked his shuttle in Jedha City and used his own money to hire transport out to the tablelands. Putting Imperial resources to personal use is an infraction that staff of his rank actually have to answer for. But he’ll only be caught if one of his commanders is more dutiful than usual about checking nav-logs, and even then, they’ll only dock his pay, rather than making do with one fewer cargo pilot for the length of a brig stay. Of course, he considers with a kind of giddy terror, if he defects, all this will be moot. What’s one joy ride compared to treason?

Kiran greets him outside with a wry smile and a deceptively tight hug. When he ducks through the front door of a hovel built for a woman no more than one-and-a-half meters tall, he sees his mother standing at the sink, washing dishes. She exclaims his name and looks happy to see him, but she finishes washing all the plates and cups on the counter before drying her hands for a hug.

The Sullustan woman—known to Bodhi only as _the mayor_ , a name the two dozen settlement residents began calling her in jest and she adopted with pride—speaks up from her chair in the corner, chiding his mother for lack of maternal affection. But Bodhi doesn’t mind. He has never felt anything less than absolutely loved by his mother, warm and safe and _welcome_ in her presence, and yet he knows that when he is away she doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying or missing or even thinking about him. It’s not in her nature. She’s never seen much point in dwelling on things she can’t control. Bodhi envies her equanimity. When he _is_ away, especially in dangerous situations—the kind that working for the Empire makes just about inevitable—he draws comfort from knowing that his mother will be okay, whatever happens.

More than okay, even. Some twenty minutes into Bodhi’s visit, his mother casually lets drop a proton bomb of an announcement: she’s _engaged_. A few months ago a trader wandered into the settlement, off-course between Dehra and the Holy City. Less than a full day of Bodhi’s mother’s hospitality and the man proposed on the spot. A week of careful consideration later, she said yes.

“You know Mom,” Kiran says, shrugging, after Bodhi has expressed his disbelief. They’ve been sent to collect water from the vaporator at the center of what passes for a town square. “She’s relentlessly practical. And it’s not like she’s ever been particularly attached to staying on this rock.”

Bodhi’s maternal grandparents came to Jedha, like so many others, as pilgrims seeking enlightenment. They found instead a particularly vicious strain of flu, and their nine-year-old daughter found herself an orphan. Ever since, Bodhi’s mother has been the resident of Jedha perhaps least interested in the _myth_ of Jedha, in anything to do with religious sects or mysticism or the Force. And now that, save for Kiran, she has once more found herself without the tether of family, Bodhi supposes it’s no surprise his mother has no sentimentality about leaving. Hell, it’s not as though _Bodhi_ didn’t take the first chance to get off-world he came across.

“Besides,” Kiran continues, “Garrin’s a decent enough man. And it’s looking like the right time to leave. Last week there were troopers in Solhi Spaceport, and that’s only a two day’s walk from here.”

She keeps her tone carefully neutral, and Bodhi knows why. No one in their family has ever liked the Empire, but where Bodhi long ago came to a kind of resignation regarding its omnipresence—and took that first chance to get off-world he came across, which _of course_ was the Imperial Academy—Kiran has only ever exhibited stubborn defiance. He knows she’s never approved of the choice he made. For a moment, just a moment, he wants to tell her: _I’m defecting to the Rebellion. I’ve been trusted with a mission—we’re talking fate-of-the-galaxy stakes, here_. But he _can’t_ , and besides, thinking of it  _that_ way makes him a little sick, so instead he swallows and asks, “Where?”

“Ogem,” Kiran says. It’s more than Bodhi could have dared hope. Ogem is a trade world, officially politically neutral. If his mother and sister are moving to Ogem, they will be out of the Empire’s reach, as much as they can be, without taking on the dangers of a Deep Space planet or Rebellion warzone instead.

Of course, if they move to Ogem, Bodhi may never see them again. He has given little-to-no thought about the _after_ in all of this, the theoretical future when he has completed Galen’s mission and is free to do as he pleases. Theoretically free. Just for a moment, he lets himself imagine receiving a tidy reward from a grateful Alliance, using it to retire to—where?—some _theoretical_ planet far from all the fighting, where he can keep a comfortable base to dock a ship or two, take them out as he pleases for the pure pleasure of _flying_.

It’s an absurdly optimistic dream, but it’s what Bodhi needs right now.

That theoretical planet can’t be Ogem, though. Trade worlds are honeypots for bounty hunters, and even if the Empire never cottons on to the _galactic stakes_ of Bodhi’s mission, there’ll be a price on his head just for defecting. He’d be putting his mother and sister in danger with even the briefest visit. But maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s the sign he needs—

“Lieutenant Rook?”

Bodhi looks down, confused. His hands are hovering over the controls of a Taylander shuttle. Is that right? Has he ever even been inside a Taylander before, outside the holosimulator?

He meets Mon Mothma’s gaze and remembers. Or _stops_ remembering.

“Sorry,” he says, clearing his throat, wondering how long he spent staring blankly into literal space. “Um. Right. My family. They’re on Ogem. Now. I think.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mothma says softly, and Bodhi knows all the statement implies. He thinks of the collapsing sky on Jedha and nods. It’s not a good response, but it’s all he can manage.

“I—I’ve never thought of myself as a soldier,” he says instead, too fast and too sudden and still _not enough_. It’s the same thing he thought to himself back on Eadu, before leveling the guns of the _Zeta_ shuttle at a squadron of stormtroopers, and it’s the same thing he thought on Scarif in the pitch of battle, and he doesn’t even know what he’s trying to hang onto anymore, what he means by it, whether he’s only saying it because he can think of nothing else to say.

“I’ve never thought of myself as a soldier either,” Mothma says, meeting Bodhi’s gaze with a twitch of her lips, and Bodhi huffs a laugh, caught by surprise. “But we need more than soldiers. From the very first days of the Rebellion, before there was even an _alliance_ to speak of, we have been politicians and civilians and pilots and laborers and even droids. To take on the Empire, we need as many different people with as many different skills as we can muster. We need someone of _your_ skills, Bodhi. As soldier or technician or transport pilot, however you feel most comfortable. But we want you on our team.”

Something in Bodhi’s heart constricts at that, something so deep in his core that even Bor Gullet never touched it. Mon Mothma squeezes his shoulder, rising from her seat with a graceful sweep of her robe, and says, “Promise you’ll think about it,” and Bodhi nods, and keeps nodding.


	2. jedi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thanks to everyone who commented/bookmarked/subscribed/left kudos. I love all those things, and I'm so glad to have found this little ship in the corner of this fandom. ♥

Bodhi is nineteen years old, and he has to destroy the Death Star.

He pilots his X-wing through a fireball on the battle station’s surface and emerges burnt and blackened, ashes streaming off the tips of his S-foils. All the other members of his squadron are dead. A dozen TIE fighters breathe down his neck. Laserfire streaks through the air but never touches him. His targeting computer is fried, and from its blank screen long purple tentacles reach out to strangle him—

Bodhi wakes in a pile of blankets and sweat.

He closes his eyes, takes deep breaths. His name is Bodhi Rook. ( _I’m the pilot_.) He is twenty-five. He defected from the Empire over a month ago, and for the past several weeks he has been stationed with _Home One_. Bodhi calls up every measurement he can think of to orient himself in time and space, to assure himself of _here_ and _now_.

And then he opens his eyes and curses.

He’d like nothing more than to fall back in bed, but even sleep is no longer a refuge, apparently. As if it isn’t bad enough that all the memories of Bodhi’s life have come unmoored in his brain—now he has to worry about someone _else_ ’s, too?

(That’s the problem, isn’t it, with human memory, even without the intervention of a _Bor Gullet_. There are memories, especially from his childhood, of which Bodhi has never been certain. He can remember a time when reality seemed more permeable, when the differences between _what happened_ and _a dream I had_ and _a story my friend told me_ and _a lie I made up to get out of trouble_ seemed entirely semantic. Now that he lives a post-Bor Gullet life ( _post_ , definitely post, almost certainly post), he doesn’t have much hope of ever being able to tell the difference again.)

He knows who to blame for the dream, though: _everyone_. That is, everyone with whom he’s had even the slightest encounter aboard the _Home One_. Since Bodhi literally tripped his way into a job as Mon Mothma’s personal shuttle pilot—which, after that initial journey, has so far consisted entirely of hopping from one end of the frigate to the other and back again—his life has been an endless parade of new faces. He’s met refugees from Ryloth and Lothal, Alderaan and Onderon, Commenor and Mandalore. And, of course, many, many Mon Calamari.

This is a strange time for the Resistance, Mothma told him, though even for a newcomer the fact is obvious enough. In just a few weeks they suffered enormous losses. The fleet is a fraction of what it once was. Alderaan is _gone_. Wiped off the map. And now the Alliance is homeless, floating in space. Decimated. Barely breathing.

But _alive_. Survival itself is a victory, and it is not their only one. They have ended, in Mothma’s congressionally-flavored words, a great evil. And their triumph over the Death Star has reverberated across the galaxy, inspiring uprisings across entire systems, causing new worlds to flock to their cause. The Rebellion may even be _growing_.

In light of such extremes, no one knows whether to feel somber or celebratory, so they swing wildly between both. Everyone seems to have their own opinion on how to regroup and what to do next and where to set course, plus an entire manifesto explaining why their opinion is the right one. The one and only thing everyone Bodhi meets can agree on is this: they all want to talk about Luke Skywalker.

Bodhi is grateful, he really is. Really, truly, bone-deep grateful: that somebody listened to his message, that somebody _followed through_ , that somebody took the thread Galen Erso left dangling and _pulled_. And he is grateful, too, that people now have someone else in mind when they say _he’s the pilot_ , that he no longer has to live with the crushing weight of it. That semi-reverent tone has nothing to do with _him_.

(“Thank you for your service, Bodhi Rook,” says an unblinking Ithorian, after stopping Bodhi in a corridor and confirming his identity. “None of us would be here if it weren’t for you.”

Bodhi avoids eye contact and tries not to visibly cringe, mutters something about it being a group effort, imitates a smile before making his escape. He always thought he would _like_ being a hero, if the opportunity ever came along, but instead he finds himself gladder than ever to have avoided the medal ceremony, all that _gratitude_ pinching like a vise around his neck. He doesn’t understand this response in himself and has no desire to examine it, content to wallow in relief every time somebody doesn’t recognize him.)

But being _grateful_ doesn’t change the fact that Bodhi is back to a much more mundane experience of déjà vu in the form of a million repetitive conversations.

“Luke Skywalker. That’s the pilot’s name.”

“The pilot who destroyed the Death Star.”

“That’s the one. Luke Starkiller.”

“ _Skywalker_.”

“He wasn’t even with them until the day of. He’s someone Princess Leia knew.”

“He _rescued_ her. The Imperials had her captured. She was in a cell on the Death Star, and they were going to execute her—”

“Why would they keep her _on_ the Death Star? Sounds like somebody made that up.”

“I think he was a friend of hers from way back, member of some sort of Rebel cell that split—no, not the _Partisans_ , dumbass—”

“Wait, I thought you said he was a smuggler?”

“That’s Han Solo. He’s different. I think he’s a Wookiee?”

“He’s a friend of Princess Leia’s from Alderaan. Not the Wookiee— _Skywalker_.”

“No, he was just some random farmer she picked up, she didn’t know him at all. From some Outer Rim planet, I guess one where there’s a lot of farming…”

“Tatooine.”

“No, Dantooine. The hell is Tatooine? That’s not a real place.”

“It sure is. My stepmother-in-law was born there. Desert world.”

“What kind of _farming_ could you do on a _desert world_?”

“Moisture farming, for one.”

“Well, that doesn’t change the fact that Luke Skywalker is from _Dantooine_. It’s an Outer Rim planet _and_ it’s a farming planet. We used to have a base there, though that’s before I joined up…”

“I was there. I think a friend of mine knew him. Lot of farming on Dantooine.”

“Beautiful place. Bit out of the way, though.”

“We’re just lucky she found him. And lucky the Death Star had a flaw like that, really.”

“That wasn’t _luck_ , that was _Galen Erso_ , he specifically engineered—”

“Luke’s targeting computer was completely fried. Direct hit!”

“That’s just exaggeration. Typical rumor mill stuff. If he didn’t have his targeting computer, there’s no way he could’ve hit the exhaust port. That thing was only three meters wide. We’d be talking a one-in-a-billion chances.”

“You’re overstating it.”

“Which part?”

“What are your sources?”

“I heard he turned it off on _purpose_.”

“Bullshit.”

“Did you know Luke Skywalker is only nineteen?”

“ _Bullshit_.”

“They sent out fifty pilots, and there were only three survivors.”

“Fuck, what was I doing at nineteen? Sure as hell not destroying any space stations. Destroying my dad’s old airspeeder, sure—”

“He’d never even seen an X-wing before, much less been in one.”

“Oh, come on. What the fuck is the point of all these stories where the pilot who _successfully bombed the Death Star_ had never shot so much as a tin can and hadn’t seen the inside of a cockpit in his life? Next thing you’ll be telling me Luke Skywalker never even heard of outer space before. Either this guy is the smartest person in the universe or he’s a moron. Make up your mind.”

“Could be an idiot savant.”

“He’s just a kid who got off a lucky shot. Now shut the fuck up about it already.”

“I just heard it from one of Admiral Ackbar’s aides—Ackbar thinks he knew Luke Skywalker’s father during the Clone Wars. Says he was a _Jedi_.”

 

Bodhi is twelve years old, and his favorite storyteller is missing.

“She was arrested,” Dev says, mouth set in a grim line. Dev is Bodhi’s brother’s friend and would never lie to him. “For telling stories about the Jedi.”

“But those were secret!” Bodhi protests. “Who would’ve blabbed?”

Dev shrugs. “Stories spawn stories,” he says, and leaves it at that.

 

Bodhi is eighteen years old. The Academy is not what he thought it would be.

Some of it is, of course, but there are parts he never imagined, never would’ve even guessed at. Like his Galactic History class. Doesn’t seem like it has much to do with flying, on the outside, but it’s all about _maintaining uniformity_ , making sure all Imperial forces have the same baseline understanding of the Empire and how it got here and how the system operates. That’s what they say, anyway.

It’s a lot of propaganda, basically, but Bodhi doesn’t dare say so, even to the classmates he considers friends. They come from all over the galaxy, Core Worlds to Outer Rim, and not everyone has had the same experience with the Empire as he has. Some of them have family members fairly high up the chain of command. Some, like him, come from occupied worlds—a few even more _contentiously_ occupied than Jedha—but he can’t necessarily trust those classmates to have an unfavorable view of so-called Imperial values either. They’re all _here_ , aren’t they? He’s here too. Bodhi is a Jedhan, and his mother’s son, and he has known some of the biggest skeptics and cynics the galaxy has to offer. But he’s no _rebel_. He’s no Partisan.

So when Lieutenant Rao’s history lecture mentions the Jedi Order for the one and only time, giving a five-minute summary of how this extremist cult of religious fanatics attempted an insane coup on the Republic and a horrific attack on the Emperor, only to be nobly defeated and easily routed, Bodhi bites his tongue on every skeptical or cynical or _contentious_ question he has—including the one about whether all these adjectives are going to be on the test—and keeps his head down, taking notes.

 _Jedi = TRAITORS_ , he writes, and leaves it at that.

 

Bodhi is five years old when the Jedi come to the Holy City for the last time.

He was born only days after their last visit, which means he’s one of the oldest children on Jedha yet to be tested for Force-sensitivity, and possibly the one most excited about the concept. His older brother, Tarak, has the unique jadedness of a seven-year-old who doesn’t even remember having his own blood tested. Still, it usually doesn’t take much cajoling to get him to join Bodhi’s games, to take up a glowstick and engage in a high-stakes battle to determine the fate of the galaxy. Sometimes Bodhi even catches Tarak staring at an object across the room, hand stretched out, as though he might prove the midi-chlorians wrong, as though he still has a chance of becoming a Jedi.

Bodhi can’t blame him. It’s all any child on the entire planet wants. Thousands of faiths and cults and sects and orders have their myths and legends told and retold in the streets of the Holy City, where storytellers are esteemed nearly as highly as priests, but none other holds the same allure as the Jedi Order. Knights, warriors, mystics, magicians, guardians of peace—and above all, masters of the Force of Others, capable of bending it to their will. Bodhi can’t imagine wanting to be anything else.

His grandfather likes to complain about the Jedi, with the unique jadedness of a seventy-year-old who has always known he didn’t have a chance of becoming one, who wanted to become a Guardian of the Whills instead but couldn’t do that either. (“I had a family to support,” he says, when Bodhi asks why not, and the look in his eyes tells Bodhi not to ask any further.) Bodhi’s grandfather likes to complain about a lot of things, but the Jedi in particular.

“It didn’t use to be like this, the test,” he says. “So clinical, so perfunctory. In the old days, the glory days of the Republic, a whole branch of the Jedi Order was dedicated to recruitment. And they didn’t depend only on midi-chlorian count, checking boxes, making quotas. They knew how to really _listen_ to the Force in those days. They took the time to do it right. Did you know they don’t even visit half the Mid Rim planets anymore? Especially not in the Western Reaches. Only reason we get this special treatment is because of _tradition_.” He snorts an old man’s snort, louder than a happabore.

“I thought you liked tradition,” Bodhi says, confused.

“Don’t listen to him,” his mother says, setting a pot on the stove with a loud _clang_. “Your grandfather is a crazy old man who talks too much and fancies himself a historian.”

“Better a historian than a teller of tales,” his grandfather says, accepting a knife from his daughter-in-law and starting to chop onions. Jedha’s storytellers are another of his favorite targets for complaint.

“In this city, I can’t tell that there’s a difference,” Bodhi’s mother says, then hands Bodhi a bundle of stickli roots to peel apart.

All Bodhi knows is that he wants to be special. After all, his homeworld gets _special treatment_ , doesn’t it? His grandfather just said. So what if the odds of being Force-sensitive enough to join the Jedi Order are one in a million, one in a billion, one in a trillion? Maybe Bodhi is that _one_. Someone must be. Why not him?

Bodhi’s hand hovers a centimeter above a stickli stalk, willing it to jump into his grasp. It doesn’t.

“Get on with it, then,” his mother says, stern but not unkind. Bodhi does as he’s told, undaunted. Even the greatest Jedi requires training.

The first disappointment comes the next day, when the Jedi who comes to take blood samples from Bodhi and baby Kiran turns out not to be a Jedi at all, but a droid. The two Jedi who made the trip—a knight and a padawan, the droid explains when Bodhi asks, swiping his arm with a disinfectant pad at the same time—are busy praying in the Temple. They don’t have time to visit every Jedhan household in person.

“But— _ow_!” Bodhi jerks when the droid stabs him with the needle, even though he’d resolved to be brave and fearless. He bites his lip to keep from crying. A Jedi wouldn’t cry.

“One hundred,” the droid says, pleasant and perfunctory, then moves on to his sister.

“One—one hundred what?” Bodhi says. “Is that it? Is the test over?”

“Your midi-chlorian count is approximately one hundred per milliliter,” the droid says, producing another disinfectant wipe.

“Is that good?” _One hundred_ is one of the biggest numbers Bodhi can imagine, older than even his great-grandmother, and excitement blooms to life in his stomach, races through his veins, lights up his fingers and toes. That _has_ to be good. One hundred is a _lot_. One hundred is _huge_.

“The lowest known midi-chlorian count a Jedi has ever had was ten thousand per milliliter,” the droid says, still in that same pleasant tone.

 _Ten_ is less than _one hundred_ , but _thousand_ is more. Bodhi glances at his mother, holding Kiran in her arms, and she shakes her head, briefly. She is sorry for him, Bodhi can tell. Sorry, but not surprised.

Not good, then.

He’s not special. He’s not one in a million, one in a billion, one in a trillion. He’s not _the one_ , he’s just—one of about 99,999,999,999 who _aren’t_ the one. A speck of dust, a grain of sand, a single asteroid in the endless field of space. Small. Unimportant.

Bodhi is five years old when the Jedi leave the Holy City for the last time.

 

“Good news,” Mon Mothma says, in the same even tone Bodhi imagines she’d say “bad news” or “help help a rathtar bit my leg.” “We’ve found a temporary new base of operations. General Madine commands a small outpost on a moon in the northern reaches of the Mid Rim, and his forces have succeeded in securing the entire system.”

Bodhi has no idea who General Madine is, but he nods along with everyone else and only tunes out when people start asking questions. (He’s been tuning out of conversations more and more, lately, either because he’s slipped into a memory or because he’s trying to _avoid_ hearing anything that might trigger him slipping into a memory. Sometimes he wonders if he’s really getting any better, or just going gradually more insane.)

Later, as he’s escorting the Chancellor back to her shuttle, Mothma says, “I expect you’ll be happy to reunite with your friends, lieutenant.”

Bodhi blinks at her. And then he remembers: Cassian and Jyn and Kaytoo and Chirrut and Baze, and all the other survivors of Rogue One, what few there are. (Few, and blessed, Chirrut said, sometime in those handful of days between Scarif and Bodhi’s stay in the med bay, and Baze snorted but didn’t disagree.)

He wonders if maybe he should protest, obey whatever vague stricture of social convention wants to insist that he only knew them for a few days, really, and their mission may have been big and important and life-changing but it’s _over_ now, there’s no reason for them to continue to interact as a unit, _friendship_ isn’t how they’re going to defeat the Empire. But none of that is the truth that Bodhi feels, which is: he misses them, and he would like to see them again, and he’s glad to be going where they are.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, and for the first time in too long—he doesn’t have the measurements—Bodhi leaves the past behind and slips into anticipation of the future, instead.

**Author's Note:**

> I love kudos, comments, and being randomly yelled at on [tumblr](http://ladililn.tumblr.com/). ♥


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